


March of Mythology '18

by StarlightCompass (IdentityConstellations)



Category: Celtic Mythology, Greek and Roman Mythology, Norse Religion & Lore
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Coffeeshop AU, F/M, Gen, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Poetry, References to Norse Religion & Lore, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdentityConstellations/pseuds/StarlightCompass
Summary: a list of my March 2018 works from the Poetry Participation Party on tumblr'spoetryforplebsmostly flash fiction, one or two poems





	1. too late for antique vows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from Keat's "Ode to Psyche"

He can hear a child’s laughter in the back room. The girl is learning numbers today, and apparently the word “eight” is the funniest thing she’s heard in her life.

Eros smiles at the sound of it, leaning against the counter. The sun comes in from the store front windows, beams tucking gently into his hair.

“You know,” he tells the owner of the coffee shop, “you might want to bring her around next week. I could show her a thing or two.” He swipes at an imaginary speck on the counter. “What it means to be an Olympian. After all,” and he now cocks a grin, leftover college boy, “she’s got part of me.”

Psyche laughs. Then she leans over the counter, smile just as kind and just as cruel since the last time he bothered to check in. Her dark curls fall over her cheek, and Eros forgets himself and swallows.

“My daughter,” she says, deceptively soft and smelling of cinnamon and fresh air, “is _nothing like you_."

Eros looks into her eyes and finds no forgiveness there. "I know,” he whispers.

Psyche doesn’t reply. She instead whisks a doughnut off the platter and hands it over to her ex-husband.

“I didn’t order that,” he protests.

“Complimentary,” she tells him. “As thanks for stopping by."

Eros swallows again and takes it. He wishes she would scream at him, slap him, lash out. Then they could have gotten somewhere.

But instead their child bursts out the back room, giggling and tangling herself between her mother’s legs. Her plump toddler hands reach up to her, and Psyche acquiesces and props her up on her hip.

Eros waves and his daughter waves back, not aware of who he is. She leans her head on her mother’s shoulder, and Psyche one-handedly maneuvers a sleeve over his coffee cup. Eros withdraws his wallet, but Psyche waves him away. "It’s on the house,” she says.

“Forget it,” he snaps, but she stops him again.

“Really,” she promises. “I don’t want your money, Eros.”

He looks at her and the picture she makes. A coffee shop, a baby, a family. A woman who stands on her own two feet.

As if hearing his thoughts, she keeps his gaze and presses a kiss to her baby’s forehead.

After all, what’s money to their baby?

(Who won, really?)

Eros makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Psyche,” he pleads, not sure if he’s talking about money anymore. The cash trembles in his fist.

She pushes it away. “Don’t worry about it.”

Eros puts his wallet away and grabs his coffee and walks to the door. Suddenly, the words spill out of his mouth and he turns around to beg, “Can’t I just see her part time?"

And Psyche, sweet Psyche, meets his eyes, and damns him with a sympathetic smile: "Tell your mother I said hi.”


	2. waiting (for the world to end)

She empties the bowl, and he writhes beneath her. He stopped screaming centuries ago.

Doesn’t mean she forgets the sound.

When she stands back up, arms shaking under the weight of the ever-present bowl, his eyes meet hers.

“Wife,” he rasps, smile curling even now (and others would think that he was mocking, but she knew better). “You are good to me,” he murmurs, and makes a move to reach out to her. The bindings clink (though they shouldn’t, realistically) and he falls back. The dashed expression is there and gone in an instant.

Sigyn doesn’t make a sound. He can still smile, still tease even now. She can’t feel her face, frozen as it has been at his agony for too long.

“What do you want?” he tries to purr, but pants instead. “How can I repay you?”

She opens her mouth, ignoring the steady _plink plink plink_ above her.

She meets his eyes and–

He is apologizing.

She almost wants to laugh.

He, the god of tricks and mischief and never regretting a thing. Apologizing.

And to who?

The daughter of her father, the friend turned enemy?

No, Sigyn decides, shivering under the burden. That is not Sigyn’s role.

She is his wife.

The bowl is so heavy. He may have stopped screaming, but she can feel her own screams filling her lungs until her bones crackle like the ice and snow. And yet still–

She holds.

(She can’t stop. She won’t ever stop.)

Sigyn twists her head and smiles back at him. It feels wrong. But it will have to do.

“Lie to me,” she commands him.

Her husband smiles, because he understands.

And then Loki opens his mouth and does what he promises.


	3. galatea

She comes to awareness with lips pressed against her mouth.

She was a statue, this she knows, cool as stone.

Now she doesn’t know what she is.

(Was this a curse,  
flesh and blood?)

Pygmalion loved her, yes.

But nobody ever asked her if she loved him.


	4. frozen bones never hurt me much, darling (it was always time that did me in)

“It really is too bad,” Macha says, leaning against the counter. The chill granite bites into her side, and she shifts her hips.

Nemain is licking her fingers, grinning with her sharp teeth and sharp eyes and sharp soul. Macha doesn’t shudder, because she recognizes her sister’s nature. “There’s a beauty to it,” Nemain negates, sticking her fingers into the bowl again and smearing her lips with frosting.

Macha shrugs. “I always want to believe better of them.” That’s why she (once) worked with the lands, the cows, the plains. That’s why when he wove flowers in her hair and fiercely whispered she was the best girl in the world, she blushed under the midday sun.

Nemain snickers, though not in an ungraceful way. The raspberry frosting begins to look like blood against her mouth, and Macha feels a tad sick. “Poor Macha,” Nemain teases, thumping her knife-edged heels into the cupboard door. “You don’t expect them to be foolish. I do.” She hops off the counter, heels clicking against the kitchen floor. The faucet turns on and red mixes with water, clearing her hands and Macha’s memories with it. “That’s why I’m the lawyer,” Nemain states.

“You just like to intimidate people,” Macha says, and Nemain grins at this pronouncement.

“Half the battle is havoc,” she agrees. Her smile fades. “The other half is acceptance.”

Macha hums, glancing over at her other sister. Badb is working over the cake, dark hair swept high. The tallest sister’s brow is furrowed in concentration, lip bitten with past abuse.

“What do you think, Badb?” Macha asks, because this is what they do. What they are. Three fates, hands joined to tell one story. Macha, cultivating the beginning. Nemain, relishing the twists of life. And Badb, ever-quiet Badb, witnessing the end.

“Their time was up, Macha,” Badb soothes even as she scolds. The frosting falls into delicate swirls atop the cake. “You know that.”

Macha sighs, plucking a raspberry off the top of the cake and biting down on it. The juice spills over her tongue.

“Things are different now,” she argues, even though she knew there was no point. “We are different. Why should we follow the same path as we did before?”

Nemain cackles drily, like the frostbitten woods of their island, and Badb hums under her breath.

“Doesn’t it hurt, Badb?” she questions her sister, suddenly desperate for an answer, a different answer, anything to explain why the world changed and yet they were still here, the same and redundant and three, as always.  
Badb looks up, black eyes roiling like the storm she always brought down. Macha does shudder now, because she can hear it, _she can hear them–_

“Macha,” the battle crow whispers, finalization swirling in the air, choking them, “do you really think it didn’t hurt before?”

Macha thinks of the frozen bodies on the green. She swallows and taps a finger against the counter, looking out the window.

“How funny it is,” she murmurs, “that there are wars everyday, and we are obsolete.”

Badb shrugs and brushes back a wisp of hair. “Better us than them.”

Nemain laughs quite suddenly, and Macha smiles, because yes, they are obsolete, but they were still three.

And so Macha will cry over her beginnings and twine flowers in her hair, and Nemain will grin into her drink while overhearing people’s follies, and Badb will look over each person and see the light leave their eyes and still offer you tea.

The Morrígan may be obsolete, yes, but maybe. Just maybe…that was a good thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fudged up Morrígan and the 3 fates because I do what I want 
> 
> Anyways, story is 3 old goddesses of war are still here but can’t get involved to pick a winner or even send aid because they themselves are obsolete, have no power other than witnessing stories (the beginning, middle, and end), but hey. Even crazy war goddesses can have PTSD, so maybe that’s a good thing ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	5. Ariadne

Did you leave me?

Was it your choice?

Was I merely a maiden

For your foolish games?

I helped you

I saved you

I loved you

Was that not enough?

After everything

The fear

The death

The triumph

Why was I not enough?

(Why do I always love you more than you love me?)

I was placed as head of the Maze

And oversaw it all

I knew the way out, you know

I got lost as a girl

And had to find my own way

The monster (half-brother?)

Snorting and tearing

Through the passageways

I was so afraid

(But he was my brother, was he not?)

I made it out

I made it out many times

(One time, he saw me

Tawny eyes filled with madness

He tilted his head

I waited for him to eat me

But he didn’t.

He sniffed my scent

And turned away

Somehow, he did not want to

Hurt a little girl

Maybe he knew

We were both doomed

We were both doomed)

Despite this

I showed you the way

I let you be the Hero

I stood to the side

‘Now’ I thought as you slew

The monster (my brother)

‘Now you will look at me’

But you didn’t.

Your eyes had a film of blood

And you looked away

(Were you ashamed?)

I stood to the side

And let you play

Pretending I had not played at all

I let you guide me out

As if you were the Head of the Maze

And I was the foreign child

I let you take me away

(I ran with you, in fact)

We were strangers and conspirators

And lovers and murderers

(But then, I always loved you more than you loved me)

You left me

This I know

But ships can turn back

'Now’ I thought as the wind

Rustled the back of your head

'Now you will look at me’

But you didn’t.

My feet felt cold in the sand

My fingers were bare

Tears did not come

For tears would join the sea

(And Poseidon had got us

Into this mess

And I will never give him

The satisfaction)

You left me

It was your choice

I was merely a maiden

Not a Hero, not in this game

Even though

I helped you

I saved you

I loved you

I was not enough

The air is thick now

With the blood of the Maze

'Now’ I thought

Gazing up at the sky

'Now I will break away

From the thought of my sins’

(Brother

Lover

Murderous child)

But I didn’t.

.

(Throughout the years,

People don’t know

That within the Labyrinth

Were two

One with teeth

The other with eyes

To watch over the monster

It may sound like lies

But beg the question now:

Who was the monster, in the end?)

.

_(We were both doomed_

_We were both doomed)_


	6. cassandra, cassandra

_“Name?”_

******_{my mouth is sewn closed_**  
**_my jewel-teeth beetle together_**  
**_like the grind of a pick-axe}_**

_“Name!”_

_The words feel like a slap, a chill-frosted bone in the midst of winter._

_Starving._

“Cassandra.”

_Horn-rimmed eyeglasses glint off the synthetic lights._

_“Occupation?”_

_The parched lips curve into a smile_.

“Oracle.”

**_{I am the oracle_  
_I have seen the world twice over_  
_Over and over_  
_and over and over_  
_And they never stop dying_  
** **_and they never stop living}_**

_“Stop screwing around.” Snap._

_The smile fades._

“Archivist.”

_The pencil scratches against the paper._

_“Do you know why you’re here?”_

_The heads buzz around like multiflavored bees, faces fuzzed out but feel like encroaching shadows._

_**{Cassandra, with her coal voice** _  
_**and crackle-diamond cries** _  
_**and the rustrustrust** _  
_**left underneath–** _

_**you can hear sirens under her skin** _  
_**red and blue** _  
_**buildings crashing** _  
_**beneath her feet–** _

******_That golden boy_**  
**_who tried to kiss her_**  
**_and when she fought back_**  
**_all the shades_**  
**_aligning the hallway  
looked away–_**

_**“Oh, Cassandra,” her mother sighs, dipping her head near your own. Her lips pause near your ear, and her next words make you shiver: “You can’t save the world.”}** _

_“I said, why are you here today?”_

_**{Eyes closed}** _

“I don’t know.”

_The room is abuzz, flung with color and cruelty and high-keening desperation._

_A scoff of laughter across._

_**{Eyes opened}** _

* * *

 

Oh, Cassandra.

You can’t save the world.

You can’t even save yourself.


	7. the (un)story of psyche

We all know the story of   
Eros and Psyche  
lovers torn apart by   
one’s damned humanity

But what if   
it was different?

Psyche is very beautiful  
People comment this as they walk on by, for her family’s kingdom stands in a trade route   
“Beautiful and wise,” counters another,   
And each add to her retinue  
They don’t have to do this  
There is no agreement, no offering,   
no promise of benefit   
These are just the musings of ordinary people   
Thoughts on their home and their bread   
and their families asleep in bed

Psyche is very beautiful  
This is a weapon.

They say Aphrodite took offense  
And sent her son Eros to do her in  
But Eros pricked himself on one of his   
own arrows, and fell in love   
with a simple-hearted maiden

Eros fell in love, yes  
But not from his steel-tipped arrows  
He fell in love because   
Psyche was very beautiful, yes  
But Psyche was also brilliant

They say Psyche cried on her wedding day  
Sobbed up the mountain  
For she was to be an offering   
To a serpent-king

Psyche did not cry

They say how Psyche is taken to her   
husband’s palace and she asks for   
Books  
“Books?” he asks archly, and she raises a brow at him  
“Yes,” she replies. “Books.”

How she asks him questions each night,   
wrapped in his embrace   
“Can a god die?”

They say how her sisters give her the knife   
And how she lights the lamp   
And she can’t   
She can’t

The oil drizzles on his chest   
And he opens his eyes and   
Sees the glint of the knife   
And he screams in surprise   
But Psyche stands there   
And whispers, “Join me.”

Psyche then plots against them all   
Tells the reed of freedom,  
Plays Aphrodite  
And burns down the ambrosia fields

“We will rebuild!” they holler,  
hail raining down from the sky.  
But Psyche, lone Psyche,  
with her dress tattered and her belly wide,  
meets their eyes

“I won,” she whispers   
The truth ringing  
“There will be other wars  
But this one   
I won.”

The gods scream   
And gnash their teeth   
And Eros watches his wife  
And child  
From far away

She smiles now, finally and true   
And says the words the gods   
Always will remember and rue

“You no longer hold humanity   
in slavery”

(Her sisters were killed  
Soul pieces destroyed  
But Psyche kept on)

(Yes, Psyche lost it all  
But Psyche kept on)

And that is the story  
of one’s damned humanity;  
Yes, that is the story  
of Beautiful Psyche

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on my little sister, who could take on the world and still maintain her heart.


	8. (cassandra) again and again

I have dreams.

Dreams of places and people I’ve never met before in my waking, but they seem real. They know me, but I am not me. Not a me I recognize.

I have dreams, and I feel like I am lying to myself. But in these lies, do I find truth?

Why do I know which steps to take in that palace? Why does that woman’s face look so familiar? Why does the music–the forgotten music of a time long past–why does it rattle in my ears and soothe to faded whispers in the morning?

Am I really here?

I have not died in my dreams, never.

I am alive, in all my renditions.

But I am not them, am I.

I’ll tell you something:

It frightens me.

I’m terribly frightened of everything, this perhaps most of all.

I don’t tell my dreams anymore. No one believes me. I knew they wouldn’t believe me the minute I opened my mouth. I call myself crazy, but that’s the terrifying thing: what if I’m not crazy at all? What if it’s all real?

My days are always tinged with exhaustion, like pale paint-spatters lining the inside of your arm. Veins.

Dreams shoot down them, and they keep me alive.

(Sucking the blood of stars)

So I close my eyes.

People are never scared of prophecies, so long as you keep your mouth shut.


	9. the greatest sin ever made (was pretending it was okay)

_“I hate you.”_

_“No you don’t. You’re your mother’s child. You can’t hate anyone.”_

_“I do. I hate you. I’ll never stop hating you.”_

_._

_._

_._

_“Never.”_

* * *

 

He’s fixing his tie in the mirror, and he can see the man’s eyes catch on a slight form.

“Come here,” Ares orders.

Eros does, reluctantly. His feet drag against the rough carpet. He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve what happens next, but it’s his own fault for coming in.

He should have known better.

But sometimes, when you get lonely, you’re stupid.

Ares grips him by the shoulder, and Eros tries not to stiffen. But then he’s kneeling down, face to face and wiggling both ends of the tie in his face.

“Watch,” Ares instructs.

Eros does.

He knows how to tie a tie. Hephaestus taught him. Hephaestus taught him loads of things, and Eros hadn’t even needed to ask. He just let him sit in his lap and fiddle with whatever he was working on, just on a smaller scale. Hephaestus is hard and dark and smells like forged fire but Eros feels safe there. He knows Hephaestus’s hands are gentle, and even though they are covered in callouses, they’ve always been soft when handling Eros.

But Eros does watch.

He watches his father’s firm grip, strident in curving the fabric in place. He watches the way he bites on the inside of his lip, which only makes him look more stern and angry. He watches his brown eyes, so different from Mama’s and his, flicker back and forth before finally settling on him.

“Well?” Ares snaps, impatient with the silence. “Do you got it?”

I’ve got eyelashes like you, Eros wants to say.

Instead: “Yes.”

“Good.” Ares stands up. “I expect you to wear ties from now on."

Eros doesn’t respond, only steps away from his father and turns to exit the bedroom.

"Wait.”

Eros halts. He turns around, already tired. Whatever preconceived notion of masculinity has he failed now?

Ares is looking at him.

Already, this feels different.

Eros stands at attention. He tries not shift. But his father is making him so uncomfortable, because his stance isn’t tight, his shoulders are drooped and considerate and his hands aren’t ready to strike and he looks, he looks, he looks–

Eros averts his eyes and buttons up his lip.

He looks sad.

(He looks kind.)

“Son,” Ares whispers. “Do you love me?"

No, Eros wants to say.

(Yes, a smaller, sadder part inside him says.)

Instead:

"Yes, sir,” he replies dutifully.

Ares’s smile twists in a way that Eros has never seen before.

All at once, Eros wishes that he and his mother were back on the island. It was easier there, pretending to be alone and wild and like he had nothing tying him down. Eros would have wings, wings that lifted him through the ocean-spray and drifted him just inches above the sand on the beach that tickled his ankles. And Mama would smell like island lilies, all fresh and clean and floral and she would gasp in delight at his sandy feet and she would hold him on her lap as she finished her toilette to entertain some gentleman and her smooth fingers would slide through his hair and it would feel like the citrus blossoms dusting the earth with beauty and love and and and–

Ares is stepping forward now. “You must know, then,” he says, hands outstretched (and Eros shrinks back a bit, he can’t help it), “that I love you.”

And his hands are in his hair and Eros _hates_ it because it feels, it feels, it feels–

Not different.

It feels the same.

It feels like Mama’s do, just a little, and Eros hates that.

Ares’s hands have no right to that feeling. They have no right to be touching his hair, either. Not like that. Not after all that he’s done to him.

But.

He still lets Mama sing to him, touch his hair, even when she’s been cruel.

And she has been cruel. _So many times._

Eros feels so tired. Why are there so many rules when these two–they step over it all and just change everything, expecting Eros to understand what’s going on and reacting the proper way?

But then the proper way isn’t the proper way anymore, and this moment doesn’t mean anything in the long haul, except that it _does_ , it means _so very much_ –

“Yes, sir.”

Ares stands up. “Good."

Eros closes his eyes.

Neither one pretends to notice that Ares’s hand is still in his hair.

* * *

 

_(It wasn’t fair, Eros. I hope you know that._

_It was never fair.)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *singing* sometimes you deal with abuse and don’t know how to see people you’re supposed to love when they did things to you that they can never take back and you would never do the things they’ve done to you to people you hated let alone someone you claimed to love and you don’t know how to move on because that requires forgiveness and you don’t know if you’re strong enough for that~
> 
> I wrestled with this one-shot for a while, flittering from character to character. It started, actually, with a painting I saw that shocked me: "Cupid Chastised" by Bartolo Manfredi.  
> It was terrifying and didn't exhibit parental love and respect at all, so it sent me reeling. I considered it; Eros, the son of Ares? And it all sort of spun out from there. 
> 
> If you read Ares as abusive, you'd be correct. Of course, there's that toxic masculinity mentality that has caused many men to abuse their sons because that's how you "become a man."  
> But that's really no excuse, is it? 
> 
> Because we wouldn't do that. Ever.
> 
> And we deserve a love better than that.


End file.
